


Handy with a Knife

by fickle_fics



Category: Historical RPF, Horrible Histories
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 09:27:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fickle_fics/pseuds/fickle_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a butcher down in Essex he was handy with a knife. Mary wants to find out just <i>how</i> handy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handy with a Knife

**Author's Note:**

> Mary Brazier (according to Wikipedia) was the fence of the Gregory Gang.
> 
> Features consensual knife and blood play.

Mary stands in the doorway and watches Dick as he works, hands moving quickly in the dim light of the room, cutting and skinning and hacking. She can’t really see much from the back, but she can imagine and she can hear and she can see the way his back flexes and his arms move. She doesn’t speak for quite some time and she wonders if he knows she’s there, suspects he does but that he’s ignoring her in favour of preparing the meat. She could stand and watch him all day, she’s been tempted more than once but she knows she has a job to do so instead she just allows herself a minute or two almost daily before she speaks.

“You nearly done?” She sounds impatient but it’s nothing but an act. It’s probably not a good idea to get involved with one of Gregory’s Gang. Dangerous boys, they are. She ought to know better and she does, but well you’ve got to earn a living, haven’t you?

“Nearly,” he says not even turning to look at her. “You want to give me a hand?”

She doesn’t need to be asked twice. Without so much as a second thought she strides forward until she’s at his side, staring down into blood and gore and the silver flash of his knife as it moves in the gas light. It’s even more remarkable close up, the skill, the speed. He shouldn’t be reduced to this. He should be a master butcher in London somewhere, all the best cuts for the upper classes. Thank god for the fate that brought him here instead then.

“You could get that head stuffed,” he says, hands stilling as he looks up at her, hair messy, but clothes and face clean. Well she’s the face of the operation after all. She has to look respectable and she does, so much so that he can’t quite help but wonder what she’s doing, what she’s _hiding_. “Handsome fellow, isn’t he?” he continues lifting the head and holding it up for her to see. “You could put it on your wall. Like a lady.”

She laughs at that, long and joyful. “Me a lady? Who’s gonna believe that then? No one with an ounce of sense. Don’t think it’d really fit with the rest of my things neither. We could sell ‘em though, maybe? To those with ideas above their stations.”

“Oh but we’ve all got ideas above our stations, now haven’t we? None of us are happy with our lot or else we wouldn’t be here.” He pauses and twists the bloodied knife pointedly. “Elbow deep in stolen deer.”

She can’t help but stare at that knife, at his hands, slender and coated in animal blood. It occurs to her that she should not find the sight as fascinating as she does. Perhaps she’s spent too much time in the company of him and his little gang, it’s doing things do her, things that should probably bother her.

“You’re very talented with your knives,” she says without really realising the thought was about to verbalise itself..

He beams at that, wicked and playful and it makes her stomach do a back flip.

“I am,” he agrees, setting the one in his hand down and picking up another, a smaller one, for skinning or more intricate cutting she thinks. It’s much cleaner than the other though he wipes it, and his hands, on a cloth at his side and stands up, dark hair half covering one eye.

Again without thought she reaches up and tucks it behind his ear, an action rewarded with a smile that can only be described as rakish. 

“Would you like to see what else I can do with my knives, Mary?”

Before she can even answer the tip’s running over the top of her dress, pressure light enough that she can’t really feel anything, but her eyes follow the line as she swallows hard, staying completely still in the conflict of her own mind. Run away, get back to work, come back later for the meat, when he’s gone. Push forward, see what it’s like, see what’s going on in this terrible, beautiful man’s mind, what he’s capable of.

She doesn’t look especially scared or even worried which he was to admit is pretty unexpected and he can’t help but want to see how far he can go before she makes her excuses. Will she go to Sam? Will he be upset with him for playing with their fence or will he just not care? They can’t be that difficult to find after all. Though Mary is good. Trustworthy and tough and happy with her cut, and quite pretty which never hurts business.

She closes her eyes and takes a slow deep breath before opening them again, and fixing her eyes on his. “All right, Dick.”

“All right?” He probably needs to sound less confused or this whole strange business is likely to get even stranger and out of hand.

“Shut and lock the door, Mary. There’s a good girl.”

She raises an eyebrow but does as she’s told, mostly because it’s a good idea. There are quite enough people talking about what she does, asking questions, without anyone catching _this_.

When she turns back Dick’s shining up his knife, breathing on it and buffing it with another, clean cloth and yet again all she can do is stare.

“Is it going to hurt?” She doesn’t sound especially nervous, just curious.

He chuckles as he pulls his shirt out from his breeches and loosens it a little to reveal his bare chest. “It depends on what I do, sweetheart.”

She steps closer, close enough for him to do whatever it is he has in mind, because despite the faintly sensible voice in the back of her mind warning her never to trust a poacher she honestly can’t wait to see what he’s going to do.

With one hand Dick holds the material of her dress taut, then as if it’s made of paper he slices through it, all the way down to the waist the quiet sound of rough material ripping filling the silence of the room.

“I’m going to have to demand you buy me a new dress,” she says quietly, as he parts the fabric, taking in the corset beneath. Slightly greying, the boning trying its best to free itself. It’s clearly seen better days.

“We’ll see what we can do.” Well he supposes it’s only fair really. She really does have to keep up appearances. “But since that’s the plan,” he smiles that same rakish smile as he pulls her sleeves down and apart before stepping behind her the knife cutting surprisingly easy through the tight lacing of her corset, the tip, cold and sharp grazing lightly against her back. “We’ll get you a new corset as well, shall we?”

“It was my mother’s,” she says, though she’s not quite sure what she’s trying to say. If she’s trying to explain the state of it, or if it has more to do with her desire to keep it, to not simply replace it with another one.

“Just new lacing then.”

He watches as she removes the now useless corset, folding it and dropping it lightly to the floor, as if she doesn’t want to move from her spot in front of him, as if she daren’t even bend.

“So you can undress a woman using only a knife,” she turns her head to look at him. “A very handy skill I’m sure.”

“There are other things,” he says, leaning closer, but not quite touching her. “Want me to continue?”

Turning her head back she nods.

“Do you trust me, Mary?”

She laughs at that. “No.”

“Smart girl,” he says, the tip of the knife settled at the nape of her neck. He draws it so lightly down her spine it tickles more than anything and leaves no sensation in its wake which Mary finds almost painfully disappointing.

“Dick? Is this it?”

He stares, gaping at her naked back for just a little too long. _Is this it?_. Right. Okay. Never let it be said that Dick Turpin does not give the ladies what they want.  
“Turn around,” he says, as if this is what he had in mind the whole time, though really he never had anything in mind, he was just joking with her really, reminding her of what he was capable of just in case she started getting _ideas_ , and now here he is, in a locked room with his female accomplice, semi naked practically _begging_ to be cut.

Again she does as he asks, arms loosely by her sides, making absolutely no attempt to hide her breasts and he has to admit he likes that. Her confidence. Her surety about this whole thing. 

“Do you _want_ it to hurt?” he asks, pressing the edge of the knife against the curve of her breast.

And just like everything falls into place. _Everything_. Working for the Gregory Gang, her willingness to associate with them, to take their stolen goods and sell them on, her willingness to listen to their stories and hang about in places a girl like her really shouldn’t. It’s the danger. The excitement.

“Yes,” she says in no uncertain terms. “I do.”

_Well then_. He doesn’t speak again, instead he increases the pressure, eyes focused on the swell of pale flesh soft and pliant around the knife as it sinks in, slowly, delicately and so beautiful as the flesh parts in a thin line accompanied by a soft gasp above him, blood blossoming as he removes the blade.

He’s used to blood, of course, wouldn’t be much of a poacher or a butcher if he wasn’t and that’s ignoring the odd occasion when a gamekeeper gets himself involved in their business. This, however, is different. So completely different that it’s difficult to associate all those times with this moment, with the tiny beads of blood welling up at the cut. So different that he can’t quite stop himself from swiping his thumb across it, bringing it to his lips, tongue darting out to taste without even thinking about what he’s doing.

“Keep going,” she says quiet, but firm, eyes flickering between the thin, shallow, cut on her chest and his lips, his face. He looks hypnotised, completely and utterly rapt and at peace and he’s never looked more attractive, knife in hand, her blood on his tongue.

It’s his turn to do as he’s told now, skilled hands cutting with the sharpest blade he has, thin, precise lines. He works at random, occasionally crisscrossing over other cuts, cutting deeper than before. Judging from the way her chest heaves slowly and the little sounds, a mix of pleasure and pain, coming from her he’s doing it right. He knows he is of course, he knows what he’s doing. Knows where skin becomes fat, where fat gives way to muscle and finally bone, but working on a living, breathing, _willing_ creature who can give feedback is somewhat outside his realm of experience, but he could get used to it. Very much so. 

The flow of blood is more free now and he looks up to check she’s all right, to see if perhaps he should suggest she sit down, but it’s difficult to tell in the dim light of the room whether she’s paler than usual, still she looks happy enough, gazing back at him with half closed eyes and she isn’t losing that much blood, hardly any in the grand scheme of things, though he lets the knife drop from his hand, a dull clunk at it hits the wooden floor which is lost to the pounding of blood in his ears as this time he dips his head, tongue lapping at the drops of blood collecting, but not dripping, at her nipple, suckling like a baby at something much greater than milk. He feels her hand in his hair, gently lifting his head, positioning it at the breast itself, at the source of the blood, licking her clean noisy and eager, tongue soothing over her wounds, until finally he pulls away, breathless, lips bright red with her blood. He chances a look at his handy work and he has to admit it’s quite the work of art, the vivid pink lines raised against her perfect white skin. Before he can say anything though, his gaze is pulled away by her hand at his jaw, tilting his head upwards as she descends on his lips, tongue running over and into his mouth to taste herself.

She’s the one that breaks the kiss, the most bruising, passionate and downright aggressive kiss he can ever remember.

“I’m going to need your shirt,” she says, like the past few minutes haven’t even happened. “Have to keep up appearances now, don’t I, Dick?”


End file.
